Soviet Railways Run Normally Despite Earlier Strike Threats

The Soviet Railroad Ministry said trains were running normally Tuesday--an apparent victory for officials and radical reformers who had urged railroad workers not to strike.

“There are no interruptions in the work of the railways. They are all working according to schedule,” said a spokesman for the ministry.

Aug. 1 was first mentioned as a date for a rail strike more than a week ago, and it took on extra weight over the weekend when leading Soviet newspapers warned that such a strike could bring chaos and catastrophe.

But checks with other regional centers that had figured in the reports of possible labor trouble--including the Armenian capital of Yerevan and the Byelorussian industrial center of Vitebsk--showed business as normal.

“There were rumors but all trains are working,” said a spokeswoman for the Armenian news agency Armenpress.

Gorbachev Appeal Noted

Unofficial reports reaching Moscow said Ukrainian workers had been holding informal strike meetings and that President Mikhail S. Gorbachev had appealed to them through the Railroad Ministry. These reports could not be confirmed.

The Communist Party daily Pravda said Sunday that reporters in Leningrad had been told of “debates going on for several days . . . and calls for a rail strike” along the giant Oktyabr rail network covering the northwest of the country.

Radicals Call for Restraint

Radical deputies in the Soviet Parliament, meeting over the weekend, joined in the call for restraint, saying that a rail stoppage on top of a miners’ strike just settled could be used as a pretext to halt reforms.

The nightly television news broadcast Monday devoted 10 full minutes to a report on measures taken by outgoing Railroad Minister Nikolai S. Konarev to forestall a strike.

A Western diplomat who monitors the Soviet economy said the media campaign was aimed at reassuring the country that everything was being done to prevent a strike, which could cripple an economy already reeling from enormous deficits, wide-spread inefficiency and sluggish growth.